Long story short, I recently brought home a 2 year old TB filly who fractured her pelvis in June training to race. She spent a month in the hospital immediatley after the injury being treated for complete cauda equina (she couldn't pass feces or urinate on her due to nerve damage for about 3 weeks), and was on a line and kept from laying down for a month. Initally after that was doing great, then began to develop severe muscle atrophy on the affected side. 3 months into her stall rest, and when it became clear that she wouldn't be racing anytime soon, or be able to go through auction soon, she became a giveaway, and thus came to me.
Her inital discharge from the hospital only identified her injury as a luxated sacrum, and reccomended 3- 6 months stall rest. No bone scan or radiographs were taken, but ultrasound and rectal exam confirmed pelvis fx. Her tail remains paralyzed, but she passes feces and urine with no trouble. I got her at 4 months post injury, and over the last two months, have begun very small amounts of handwalking (ie started at 1 minute, was up to 5 mintues). All was going rather well, and even the atrophy was becoming slightly less defined. Hardest part has been keeping all four feet on the ground while walking, since she would much rather buck, rear,leap etc than walk nicely.
But, the last 10 days or so, she seems to have become more agitated about her hind end again, especially when we walk, so I stopped walking her on my vets reccomendation. Today, we were grazing just outside of her stall when she took a step, and it seemed like it stung- started kicking out with that leg and got very upset. She got over it in a few mintues, but it certainly shook me up.
Of course, now I'm terrified that we shouldn't have walked, and I re-broke her, and now these several incidencies over the last week have been the new (or old) injury being tweaked and loosened. Other possibility is that because of the severe nerve damage she has in the area, and some of the therapies we've been doing have been to restore the area, maybe the discomfort is actually nerve tinglings?
Has anyone been through this at all? Any thoughts? I was going to take her back to the hospital, but since they never bone scaned her before, they said it would be not useful to do so now. I was even going to haul her up to Davis to get a complete work up, but their feeling was that no matter what we spent trying to image and work it up further, the end result would still be stall rest, so why not save the money and just sit tight. But I don't sit tight well. So, ideas anyone?
FYI, this filly is in a 12X20 barn stall, geting multivitamin supplements, joint supplement, Ameredon's Rapid Response F (used topically EOD as well), Ameredon's UnTyeMe, and has a blanket with magnets on the affected side that we've just gotten for her. She's had the chiropractor out twice for her, as well as muscle manipulation of the hind end daily.
I have photos I'll try to figure out how to post of the hind end atrophy. Thanks in advance for any help!